Health Care: Continued Leadership Needed to Define and Implement Information Technology Standards Page: 3 of 16
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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the importance of defining
and implementing standards to speed the adoption of interoperable
information technology (IT) in the health care industry. It has been
widely recognized that the use of IT for delivering care, supporting
the public health infrastructure, and performing administrative
functions has great potential to improve care, bolster preparedness,
and save money. Health and Human Service's Secretary Leavitt
recently stated that Hurricane Katrina has underscored the need for
interoperable electronic health records as thousands of people have
been separated from their health care providers, and medical
records have been lost. Standards are critical to enabling this
interoperability.
At your request, today I will summarize (1) our previously issued
reports and recommendations on health IT standards and (2) recent
actions taken by the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) to develop health IT standards. In preparing this testimony,
we summarized our prior reports and updated progress toward
implementing recommendations in accordance with generally
accepted auditing standards.
Results in Brief
We reported in 2003 that the identification and implementation of
health care data, communications, and security standards-which
are necessary to support interoperability of IT systems-remained
incomplete across the health care industry. Further, while several
standards-setting initiatives were underway, we raised concerns
about the coordination of these initiatives. To address the
challenges of coordinating and implementing a set of standards, we
recommended that the Secretary of HHS, among other things, reach
further consensus on the definition and use of standards, establish
milestones for their definition and implementation, and create a
mechanism to monitor their implementation throughout the health
care industry. Following up on our recommendations, last summer
we testified before your technology subcommittee, highlighting
progress made in announcing additional standards and plans toPage 1
GAO-05-1054T
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United States. Government Accountability Office. Health Care: Continued Leadership Needed to Define and Implement Information Technology Standards, text, September 29, 2005; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc291475/m1/3/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.